Skateboarding Game - The Answer is Never!

I removed my comment as this isn't my thread to advertise, nor was it my purpose. Just wanted your attention.

 

"Ollie Up"

Recognisable to skateboarders and has that unwritten question of "up what?" to get interest..

 

The board sticking through polygons is why I stopped making a snowboarding game. It's just an annoying problem. You would have to raycast from the ends of the board instead of the middle, etc.

I just cheated with an invisible sphere to handle all physics, then faked the visual side with raycasts and rotating to normals.

 

Skate Star

 

Yea this is how I was "faking" rotations up and down a half pipe. It visually was working pretty well.

 

Simu - Skate|pro|board - lator

Still looking for a name?

 

I haven't found a name yet. It's story based and takes place in a small town in 1989. The story revolves around a small set of high school friends trying to keep a special spot in town for skating and fighting with the city politicians over it. I was thinking maybe something in the wording to do with the themes of small town America, the late 1980's, teenage years in high school and skateboarding culture.

 

Hmmm. Brings to mind a kind of 'Footloose' vibe - maybe Fliploose?

Some other ideas:

Gnarlpower

RadSlam

Railslide Rebels

Sk8ers Gonna Sk8

 

Sk8er 88 - Battle of the Boardwalk

 

I've got one......

Skategrounds - I'm being serious, I like that one.

Or JamesArndt's Skategrounds if you want to know where the inspiration came from. lol

 

Okay so for better or for worse I've landed on a name that fits the narrative story for this project: This was my very rough first "sketch" for the logo. The story is based in 1988 in a small town, based around a group of young teen kids who's lives revolve around school and the local skate ramp. To really truncate the story, they lose their ramp by demolition and have to figure how to build up a new one somewhere new. They go back and forth with the city council and basically, they are told to go pound sand...which results in the cities response in the game's name.

I am not tied to this logo or font or coloring by any means. I kind of like it a little, but I don't love it. I think it's missing background or side elements. I am not sure and could use some guidance from any of you Graphic Designer types out there.

Here is a link to my reference folder for the style(s) I'm going for: https://goo.gl/V5Z2PJ



For any interested here is a link to the "Builds" folder where I will keep iterations of the game's current state. There is a single ZIP for the latest build in there if anyone feels so inclined to give it a go. https://goo.gl/MXXV2L

 

Gnarly!
That'd look great as a board sticker placed on the bottom of one of the board designs you create! To make it more authentic have one corner of it peeling up with a little road dirt/dust under it, with another corner scuffed from a curb or rail.

 

Light fix

 

I love those colors. I think the words get lost in the background now though. Here's the real challenge, at least for me. I think it has to be able to work on light and dark backgrounds so I debate using background elements.

I also used some of the "space" tech looking grid stuff that was popular back in the 80s design but I just felt it didnt convey the theme. Like theANMATOR2b said I feel like incorporating marks, scuffs or the effects of skating or ramp riding into this logo is how I'm gonna nail it.

I'm wondering if a silhouette of a ramp might be a good idea. I just keep coming around to the idea of putting something behind the logo like these:

 

How bout the logo 'tagged' on some plywood? Plywood - the universal material for building ramps - at that time.

 

I like that. I might be able to do something with that and maybe the idea of illustrating part or all of the half pipe ramp. I'm going to see what I can do with my illustration skills here.

 

As I'm working on the logo aspect I wanted to ask something of the community. I am not sure if any of folks on here are writers or not, but I have a story I am fleshing out a little more.. I'm considering everything; ideas or concepts I haven't thought about. Here is a basic premise. If anyone has some free time and would like to add or edit a bit of something to this basic idea please do.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qb2GDVqALFU_2EwIbY3RMt3grWBTSYBqwvn_caHu_tQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

I don't understand. Where is the goat ?

 

I wish I knew

 

James - have you played Bully? The premise makes me think of Bully with all the extra stuff the player has to do in order to progress in the game.
Also - include dog walking on skateboards. That falls directly in line with the story.

 

No I haven't but oddly enough I am storing some of the concept art for Bully 2 as neighborhood reference. I don't know if they ever shipped that game, but I liked the concepts that laid out a neighborhood. I will look into this and watch some game play on YouTube. Thank you for the resource.

Here is that "rumored" concept art for Bully 2. Don't even know if it was really for that game or not.

 

I have a new video up with progress on a new game system. It's really a short clip of me playing the current build. This system plays a good sized role in the game and it's far from finished, but I already find it really amusing. I've implemented an audio controller for the player and the pedestrian AI. The audio controller also creates impact sounds after landings on wood, metal or concrete...but the code is bugged and commented out for that part. Will revisit it once I solve the problem. One of the coolest things is the pedestrian AI is now routing along their waypoint paths at varying speeds. The pedestrians are aware of when the player is close to them and they will stop in their tracks and issue sarcastic phrases to you. It's only work from today, so it's very early and there is a lot more to do with it.

If anyone feels so inclined to test this system out for themselves please do. Here is a folder with the current builds, they are sorted by date. Choose the latest date build version and you're good to go.

https://goo.gl/MXXV2L <-- Link to build

 

This will be the main page and development blog headquarters for all updates as development progresses. I wanted to take a moment to say "Hello" to all of the new visitors who may happen on this page. The page itself is also a work-in-progress as I've done little to no art at all at this juncture. I've been writing code, using proxy shapes for testing. Check out the development blog to have a look at some of these systems working in the build.

https://fatboxsoftware.itch.io/the-answer-is-never

I've also finalized the main logo thanks to Robert Hashman's graphic design wisdom.

 

I work during the day for Roblox. Go to school from 6 pm - 8 pm and then get home around 8:30 or so...and do a small amount of modeling for 2-3 hours. I wrapped the base mesh for this asset up over the course of the last two nights. Looking forward to bringing this into Substance Painter. If you'd like to know anything about what I'm creating this for you can visit --> http://www.theanswerisnever.com

 

Cute project, cant wait for finished product

 

The texturing is coming along nicely. I should have this wrapped up over the next few days. I only have very small bits of time to work on it in the evenings. Luckily Substance Painter makes things move along very quickly in short bursts.

 

I spent my "off day" today modeling the hero character's shoe. It's based off of an old school Converse All Star shoe. As you can see in the progression of the images I start out by drawing splines for the more complex curvature and then create polygons between them using a lofting technique. Eventually it builds up a nice model. Tomorrow I might find time to do the texturing portion and make this look like a real shoe!

As always if you'd like to follow what's going on with this game in detail you can @
https://www.facebook.com/TheAnswerIsNever/

 

This is the "final" version of a shoe that is wearable for the main playable character in The Answer Is Never! The art asset is rendered in Unity 5.64 using a Standard Specular Material, the Post Processing Stack and a custom HDRI image.

 

Looks very good!
If I were the art director my only notes would be:
The dirt on the white areas is good, but it looks a bit too dark on the fabric.

 

You know I have to agree with you. Luckily this is an easy fix. Thanks for making that observation. Sometimes we spend so much time working on something we can't see from that outside perspective.

 

It happens with art all the time, me too.

I was skimming google/images old canvas sneakers
Not easy to find legit images.

http://valerie-lim.com/2010/08/08/paint-shoes-diy-tutorial/
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-torn-vintage-maroon-red-canvas-232546888

All the shutterstock images are artzy, so too dark.

I guess my point is the rubber gets scuffed but the tops stay mostly clean.
I think that dark brown between rubber and canvas is glue.

Good Luck!

 

In this video I go through some of the latest changes to the source project. These include polishing a rock solid physics-based controller, implementing a rudimentary audio system for the player, creating a pseudo "surface" detection system and the very beginnings of an animation control system.

 

I had backed off development of this game's prototyping phase to work on other more urgent work. I had all but given up on the ramp skating aspect I wanted to get working. The player was flying up into the sky, rolling over and it was a hot mess. I happened upon a tweet today by @Der_Kevin in which he had a simple capsule "skating" up and down a half pipe ramp. It reminded me so much of my early broken prototype. I said what the heck, it's Friday night, work is done..let me see what I can do. Turns out I seemed to have tweaked something things, modified some of the FixedUpdate code and the darned thing worked smoothly. I'm kind of at a loss for words to be honest. This was my last development blog ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Uj0... ) where I was focusing on the core "top-down" player prototype. I envisioned you played most of the game top down and would enter ramp contests at certain points. In these contests you would control a skater constrained to a ramp. I had previously abandoned that idea due to it becoming a time sink of frustration, but thanks to Kevin on Twitter I'm a bit reinvigorated on this aspect.

 

Looks great James!

 

Glad to see you pick the project up again man.

It's nice to see someone prioritizing sound so highly. It makes such a difference.

 

An update on this specific ramp prototype. I'm actually really happy with how it's working so far. If anyone is looking for a way to have a player roll up and down a ramp smoothly this could helpful.

Here is a link to the itch.io page for anyone who wants to follow things.
https://fatboxsoftware.itch.io/the-answer-is-never

 

I haven't dealt with the ramp to platform transition yet, but I did get the knee compression working tonight. I like the feel of playing this enough that I think I'm going to create a pool or bowl and test that out in the near future. I need to get a system for both leaning-to-turn and turn-by-lifting the front of the board. If i can get those two things feeling natural I think I'll be in a good spot.

Also here is the first build I'm sharing of this, just for anyone to test out how it feels to move the player. Any and all insight or feedback is definitely welcome.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gepfl7jylilxsno/Ramp_Build_5-19-18.zip?dl=0

 

So I wrapped up a one-day modeling session on a hero prop found in our main character's bedroom. Some of you may be old enough to recognize this console. The triangle count is pretty high for a scene prop so LODs will be in order for this once I get this highest LOD unwrapped and textured. The miserable part of doing UVs is next, but it's shortly followed by the far better experience of using Substance Painter to texture the asset.

 

I still have one.

Did you have one in hand to measure?
Looks good.

 

Yeah I have one right by my desk. It's an original wife acquired for me a few years back. I have no idea what happened to my childhood one. Mine is the larger, heavier model I think they produced in the US before moving production overseas.

 

I'm using Substance Painter 2018 to create the material look for this vintage game console. It's a prop found in one of the bedroom scenes within the game. This is currently about 75% completed and needs polish on certain areas. The working map right now is 2048x2048px in size so I'm pretty happy the console, controller and everything fit onto a map that size. In-game it may very well be compressed down to a 1024x1024 texture map.

 

This thread really reminds me of the 80s! This type of shoe was really popular in my school. The kids that had these would usually take a permanent marker and write their own graffiti-style "tag" on the side. That would be a cool customization detail you could add.

 

You sir have just added something to my list "to-do". That's a great idea. Right now the shoe is just a basic shoe, but there is no "personality" to it at all, nothing tells me it has an owner. I'm putting this on the Trello board as a task to revisit and add some marker detailing like you said. I think I'm going to do something similar with her skateboard as well. Thank you very much for your insight!

Thank you so much for this. You have no idea how much it means to me to read this. I'm trying to surround the entire feeling of the mid to late 1980's with this project.

 

Taking it one step further.
If there are things to accomplish in the game, you could add more tags to the shoes.
So start with none or one, then add more as things get done.

Very nice models and textures!

 

In this development vlog, I cover this week's work on art assets in Substance Painter and work on the save system and main menus. Feel free to like the game on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/TheAnswerIsNever

 

I'm finally showing the bedroom environment. It's not nearly finished and a good amount of it is in a proxy state. However, it does have some nice art assets I've finally placed into the scene. The latest one completed today is the bedroom desk that the television and Atari console sit on. I think once I'm done with it, it will all come together very nicely.

 

Started a second pass on the main menu mock-up and the other associated menu screens. Once I have these all in place, I'll put them into Adobe XD to test out how they work functionally.

 

Awesome job on the level of detail. Very impressive!